Is "Carrie" really female vengeance? Isn't it more "adolescent psychosis?" She not lashing out against the patriarchy or even men, really--her tormentors are primarily female, including her mother. Her reaction is so stylized that it seems unconscious--certainly not premeditated. She's a victim of a mentality and an experience set associated with a certain age, rather than her sex. There could be a male version of the story without much tweaking at all.
The Onion AV Club article lost me when I skimmed through it and realized it didn't include Audition. That's one Japanese movie that had me rocking back and forth and hoping for my happy place for DAYS. It is the ne plus ultra of chick revenge films, and this list blows.
You know the best female empowerment horror story was actually a book by Dean Koontz. I know, I know, but it was called Intensity and it was the bomb. They sort of made television movie about it, but it totally didn't do it justice.
@Vivelafat watches the watchmen.: This book was awesome, and came after I'd already written off Koontz as a total hack. There is a French horror film called "High Tension" that completely rips off this storyline, except for the fact that they turn it into a "psycho lesbian" storyline. My advice is read the book and skip the trashy French ripoff.
@Blitzgal: I KNOW! I totally saw the preview for the French film and was so stoked. I thought it was actually going to be a direct bite, and then it went off into crazy split personality-ville.
I love how she dealt with the dogs in the book. Brilliant. I think it might be the best book he's ever written (not a difficult feat really)
I remember reading a section in Backlash about how Fatal Attraction started out as what was supposed to be a film with a feminist message and then turned into a story about a crazy woman. I wish I had the book with me because I cannot remember the details.
Has anybody seen Extremities with Farrah Fawcett? She's attacked by a guy while she's getting into her car at night and then he finds where she lives and brutally assaults her there. She ends up overpowering him, and then takes him as her prisoner and turns the tables on him.
Great acting. James Russo plays the attacker. It was a play before it was a film. Powerful.
@rollergirl76: Very powerful - slams a mirror right up against popular notions of gender - at the time, I thought we'd see a Farrah comeback. Alas, no.
@63words: The ending was the only thing empowering for women in that movie. Unfortunately, it was prefaced with the most goddawful dialogue and acting ever in a movie. 5% of the movie cannot redeem the shitty 95% of the rest of the film.
@Cam/ron: Any moment where Russell wasn't onscreen was awful.
I don't know if Tarantino couldn't write for multiple female leads or what, but the dialogue and acting resulted in a large amount or shitty screentime.
@Gundam_Halo: Ok, I loved death proof. Like, really L.O.V.E.D it. First off, the ending was not the only empowering thing about that movie, unless by ending you mean "entire second half". The whole set up of the first half- where the loose women get their comeuppance (standard B-flick fare, which this movie was going for) is to pay off in the second half, where the same formula starts to roll along, but the women are total badasses and beat down their attacker.
Then, the bad acting etc was deliberate, I think, to get that B-movie vibe. It is all about exploitation and gore and sex and posses. I thought it was a super fun romp, and I loved the energy of the car chase scenes. It really captured that feeling I get when I go out mountain biking with my girl-posse, and we are doing fun dangerous things and having a blast.
Plus, oh my god, how can you not love Zoe Bell. That car chase scene was sick! One of my all time favorite action sequences, hands down.
Maybe Planet Terror was just too awesome and I was riding the high from that, but Death Proof was just so damn disappointing. The entire second half wasn't a payoff, the only payoff was when the roles reversed and Russell was running away, but that the end of the film already. The scene in the diner where the girls are sitting around talking with the camera slowly spinning around them dragged on longer than the end sequence.
Planet Terror was able to capture that cheesy double feature vibe. Hell, the fake trailers were able to capture the vibe better than Death Proof.
Enough shouldn't be acknowledged on any list simply because it was a massive pile of schlocky tripe that took a serious issue like domestic abuse and turned into something that makes after school specials look like Citizen Cane. It's cliched, poorly written and poorly acted.
Where the hell is Freeway on this list? I love a film that combines revenge with empowerment and humor - rather than say, exploitation and comdemnation.
I read the book version of "Carrie" as well as "Christine" one weekend when I was eight and it scared the daylights out of me. Both movies gave me nightmares, "Carrie" especially because I thought that was what high school was like...mean girls, pigs blood, and John Travolta...
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I guess money wins out.
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I love how she dealt with the dogs in the book. Brilliant. I think it might be the best book he's ever written (not a difficult feat really)
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Great acting. James Russo plays the attacker. It was a play before it was a film. Powerful.
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It gets bonus points with me for casting Zoe Bell, who would get points for being a total badass even if she weren't exacting vengeance.
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I don't know if Tarantino couldn't write for multiple female leads or what, but the dialogue and acting resulted in a large amount or shitty screentime.
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Then, the bad acting etc was deliberate, I think, to get that B-movie vibe. It is all about exploitation and gore and sex and posses. I thought it was a super fun romp, and I loved the energy of the car chase scenes. It really captured that feeling I get when I go out mountain biking with my girl-posse, and we are doing fun dangerous things and having a blast.
Plus, oh my god, how can you not love Zoe Bell. That car chase scene was sick! One of my all time favorite action sequences, hands down.
11/03/08
Maybe Planet Terror was just too awesome and I was riding the high from that, but Death Proof was just so damn disappointing. The entire second half wasn't a payoff, the only payoff was when the roles reversed and Russell was running away, but that the end of the film already. The scene in the diner where the girls are sitting around talking with the camera slowly spinning around them dragged on longer than the end sequence.
Planet Terror was able to capture that cheesy double feature vibe. Hell, the fake trailers were able to capture the vibe better than Death Proof.
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